Saturday, November 06, 2010

Wax

One of the by-products of honey bees is wax. I've written about wax rendering recently and the photo above is the end product. In this photo there is about 25 pounds of wax. I rendered ten pounds this year and the other fifteen pounds is wax left over from previous years. The small octagonal ones in the foreground are generally one ounce ingots which I use to make balms and creams.

I have enough wax at this point where I need to consider getting some candle molds just to use it up.

One benefit to bees wax is the smell. It is remarkably beautiful and nearly as wonderful as the smell of a hive in August.